On 15 Sep 2006 at 13:12, Bruce Robertson wrote:
Luc:
I hear what you're saying, but the case could be put the other way. I've learned a great deal on this list by discussing these things with you and others; I hope you won't mind if I present an opposing view below.
It is always a pleasure to debate issues with civilities and i am glad it is coming from someone who live in the shadow of huge antenna farm where the expression QRP is not very well understood by all.
Putting this in Luc's terms as you said and putting your comments in a digest form you seems to tell that the internet will save us and our bandwidth, Can i respectfully ask you if there is not some other fast and proven communication apparatus who can do this and could be much better than a max of 256kbs available in the market today?
I still believe the highest commitment of the visionaries towards an effective way to protect life and goods in case of an emergency and as they want not to reinvent the wheel they will not surely want to duplicate in a cheap way what it is available already in FEMA, ARMY, NATIONAL GUARD RED CROSS and so on. Is it a real benefit from an overall view point to the general public that the visionaries wants to put an experimental satellite to duplicate what it is already existing?
As someone else said even if there will always a spot who is engulf in 2.4ghz interference is there is any existing other means of communication as effective than an amateur satellite to achieve reliable emergency communication?
I understand this emergency frenzy is probably driven by ARRL who put a lot of money in this direction "the big project" i think or something like that and it is not the same ARRL who fund a lot of money a couple of month ago in AMSAT-NA?
Why not doing what's the crowds wants "communicate" just that with salt and pepper added at your taste read some experimenting? I know this will cut the pitch sale of the visionaries but they can only refer to one of my suggestion and included in the AMSAT-NA membership fee a 150$ fixed amount for satellite construction and launch. No more XYZ president club just plain money to effectively address the task.
You know Bruce a guy named Mark Fields just said the business model who makes our success in north america does not work anymore. If you extend that to AMSAT-NA it is exactly what we see actually. And even if we put all our heads in the sand the new elected folks will only follow the same trend EG: spinning the dog faster after his tail,,, Putting this in Luc's terms as you said.
Respectfully, 73
P.S. QRP is not very well suitable for HEO work. You know you can change your call letter anytime you wants here. But you can choose otherwise and remain on LEO or cubes, for me i prefer HEO with enough ERP could be VE9ERP will be a good choice too. (JOKE) only a letter to change but this one makes our hobby sharp.
"-" The medium is the message...The content is the audience...;)
Luc Leblanc VE2DWE WAC basic,CW,Phone,Satellite Skype VE2DWE www.qsl.net/ve2dwe